Fortune and Glory
by TheMaddnessOfDr.Strangelove
Summary: Set after Season 7 ended and before 8 started. It's just your regular winter in the seventh circle of hell until Hawk and the gang come face to face with a man whose name is synonymous with adventure. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: Best Care Anywhere**

_Uijeongbu, South Korea. 1952. _

Korea's winters were brutal. Made the warfare that much more unbearable. It was only November, but with the peace talks in a virtual standstill it looked like another Christmas would be go by with no end to the war in sight. Another Korean Holiday around the corner, with a soldier in every foxhole and a shambled tree in every mess tent. Hell of a buzz kill for a _police action_.

The clunky olive drab army vehicle soared widely across the Korean countryside blanketed white by the snow. The engine roared, the motor hissed, and the metal hull whined as the ambulance hit a curve so sharp that the driver was sure that they were ridding on two wheels for a split second. He was a medic. Corporal Matthew 'Doc' Richardson. Everybody called him Doc cause he was good at patching people up nice and neat before the doctors at the M*A*S*H's got to 'em. His helmet sat on the dashboard, the red cross facing front as if the big one on the side of the wagon wasn't a good enough deterrent for some trigger happy sniper. His face was caked in mud. So were his hands. There were big wet clumps of it all over the wheel where he'd tried to smear it off of himself. His knuckles were white in the icy grip of cold air. His uniform was in tatters. The load he was carrying didn't look much better. Four of them all together, sprawled out on the nailed-up cots and across the floor of the cabin. Well, almost four. Part of one guy was still back in the mud hole where the ambush had started and where the stray grenade had torn him apart. Half of his chest was gone and both legs up to his thigh. He was still breathing, but Doc didn't think, think hell, he knew he wasn't going to make it. That didn't stop him from putting him inside.

Aside from him there was only one other GI. He had a serious head wounded. The blood was soaking through the bandage around his head. The other two weren't with the others' unit and as far as Doc knew weren't even in the service. He hadn't had a whole lot of time to ask questions what with being shot at and all. One had been hit pretty bad in the chest. Taken a bunch of shrapnel. He needed a doctor fast.

Up ahead he could see the welcome sign at their destination. "They'll take care of you guys at this place," he said, relieved to see the 4077th. "Best care anywhere."

* * *

_M*A*S*H #4077_

"Attention! Attention! Ambulance in the Compound!" The familiar voice had become a troublesome reminder of this whole pitiful situation.

The wagon was right in front of the O.R. where Doc's load of casualties would soon find themselves undergoing meatball surgery, as basic and crude as they come. It was nothing fancy, but not exactly ineffective, especially around those parts. The 4077 had a 97 percent efficiency rating. 97 out of 100 men that reached that M*A*S*H could live to tell their grandkids about it.

The first one to meet Doc at the ambulance doors was Hawkeye. He was in the middle of a yawn, scratching his salt and pepper head. He was bundled up tight in his winter coat and snowcap. If only the weather had been better he'd have shown up in his class A uniform: his robe, purple and lush. "I'm certainly glad I didn't have any other plans," he said. "There's so much to do in a war zone ya know."

"Hey, Hawk," Doc replied, obviously glad to see the sardonic doctor from Crabapple Cove, Maine. "Light load today. Four. Got a couple pretty bad off. I don't think one's gonna make it."

The doctor's less than pleasant sarcasm faded. "Terrific." It was no secret that the war was hitting Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce harder these days. He'd looked like he'd aged about seven years in the two he'd been there. It came naturally when you had to put kids back together on an assembly line just for them to get shot again. "How bad?"

"Most of him is back where we came from."

"_Terrific._ What about the rest?_" _

"Got a head wound, another guy with some scratches, and a fella that took a lot of shrapnel in the chest." Everyone else in the compound started to show up, pulled from whatever they had been occupying themselves with in vain to escape thoughts of the war. They all had their hands stuffed in their pockets, waddling around the growing congregation like penguins in olive drab, nurses and all.

The doors were open now. The guy with the head wounded jumped out of the ambulance and nearly collapsed into Hawkeye's arms. He sat him down and was looking him over when a familiar pair of giant sized sneakers crossed his line of sight. "Need help, stranger?' It was Capt. BJ Hunnicutt from San Francisco.

"Howdy, Mister Wayne. Sorry, I don't need a cowboy with a funny walk. I need a doctor with a cheesy mustache."

"What's the damage Hawk?"

"Light load, see what you can do on the ambulance. I'll join you there in a second." BJ disappeared inside with a few core men. Hawk took his time. He wasn't sure he wanted to see the rag doll Doc warned him about. He was just a little _too_ sober for it. Didn't need his uninhibited memory to allow the image of a mangled body to burn into the back of his head _this_ early in the morning.

"Radar!"

"Yea, Hawkeye?" Radar had a way of popping up just went you needed him, clipboard in hand as always.

"Is Potter back from R&R yet?"

"No. He's not due for another six hours."

"Goodie. We'll be at King cue balls beck and call again in O.R."

"Hawkeye!" It was B.J. Again. "Come on! I need ya."

"Yeah, yeah!" Hawk checked the bandages around the head and got up. "Radar, take this guy into pre-op. Careful. He may have a subdermal hemotoma."

He started for the ambulance when he saw him by the pre op doors. His entire right side was crushed. Father Mulcahy was leaning over him. It was over. _Damn it_. What was worse Hawkeye had to see it. He turned back to the wagon and saw BJ walking out of it holding an end of a stretcher. Attached to the other end was a khaki clad chap. A run-down, mangy looking man. He was a lot older with hair as russet as his clothes, but starting to gray. Heavily. The same abundant trace of dusky hair whisked through a weighty beard. An unusual sight to be sure, he wore a leather jacket zipped up to the collar and a satchel. As Hawkeye got closer he got a better look at him. He had a whip hanging off his belt too and a holstered pistol on the other side. A slightly shocked smile crept onto his face. What a goofy looking guy. This fella he _had_ to meet.

Hawkeye caught up as they set the stretcher down. The chest case. The guy on it was much younger and bigger around, but dressed similar. Sported a mustache that could give BJ's a run for its money. He was muttering something and struggling to breath. Part of the guy's coat had been torn up to make a bandage. He was holding it on his chest to apply pressure. The two doctors struggled for a minute to get though the layers of clothes.

"This looks like a job for our resident chest man," Hawkeye said, his hands sticky with fresh blood. "Where's Bozo?"

"When I left, he was still in the swamp."

"Nurse Able! Go get Winchester and tell him he's on in five! Can't start this show without him!"

"How is he?" The bearded man asked.

"He'll be okay," BJ quickly replied. "You injured?"

"Just a few bruises."

"Been taming lions?" Hawkeye cut in.

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Beej, you think you can handle this? I'll look this guy over."

"Sure. Zale, get over here! Help me with this."

Like scurrying rats everyone else disappeared into the O.R. leaving cold and chapped Hawkeye with the whip-wielding newcomer. Needless to say he wasn't exactly thrilled about feeling him up.

"Where are you hurt?"

"I'm fine. Thanks." He pulled away from Hawk when he tried to check for tenderness in his arm and jumped back onto the ambulance.

"Look fella," Hawkeye called, "I don't like going this far on a first date either, but give me a break. I'm a doctor…I think."

He reappeared half a second later standing in the wagon's entrance with a fedora in hand.

"Okay, first the pistol," Hawkeye addressed playfully, "Then the whip, now the _hat_. You look like something outta one of Colonel Potter's Zane Grey's. Who…or _what_ are you and more importantly should I clear out before high noon?"

"Just see to Mac. I owe him. You gotta mess around here?"

"Yeah, but I don't think the compound's big enough for the both of ya. Trust me. Take one bite of the food around here and you'll be hitting the old dusty trail up to your face, partner." Hawkeye's attempt at a John Wayne impression was admirable, but the _cowboy_ wasn't having any of it. He rolled his eyes and mashed his hat down hard on his head.

"I'll just find it myself," he said as he started to walk away.

"Hey, wait! I was just about to tell you where Jesse James is hiding!"

It was like the cold had lost its touch. All Hawkeye could think about was getting to know his _new friend_.He ran up behind him like an over anxious child, keeping up the pace no matter how fast the fellow walked.

"Come on, guy. You know how many interesting people we get around here? I mean besides the ones bleeding from every orifice. This is like some movie fantasy come true. I can just picture it. " He threw on his best announcer voice. "It was just your average run of the mill war until he strolled in, an ominous stranger who looked like he'd been run over by a country western store."

"Like hearing yourself talk, don't you?"

"All right, all right. I'll shut up." That promise didn't last long. "So you got a name or did it run away with your sense of humor."

"Buzz off."

"Okay, okay. It's a semi free country." Hawkeye was tired of trying. If the weirdo didn't want to talk, he didn't want to talk. What was the bid deal? Did the blood get to him? The whole bloody mess make him squeamish? Hawk had been around it for two years now. Hadn't gotten to _him_ yet. Oh, sure, he cried into his pillow every now and again and sometimes he felt like getting a tank and taking a long drive off a short cliff. _Careful, Ben,_ he thought_. Before I know it I'll be babbling on one of Sidney's rubber couches_. To be fair, using the guy for entertainment in a place desperate for some kind of escape was a tad…off, but that was the cost of war. Between all the gore and the death you had a flood of long periods of time where the dead flies in Radar's animal cages got more out of life than you did. Even worse, you had to put up with the same, moldy people you never liked every day in between counting the minutes until the war started again. Meeting somebody new was the difference between making it to tomorrow and splitting your head open with an axe just to break up the monotony.

* * *

_O.R._

"Ah, Pierce," Winchester greeted dryly, "so munificent that when you're not needed in the slightest you'll still bestow upon us your _colorful_ presence." Even through an operating mask Charles' annoyance was ever apparent in the venomous way in which he coolly needled the chief surgeon despite being up to his elbows in patient. Hawkeye was scrubbed and masked, gingerly observing the only two tables in function that session, bouncing between them from time to time to avoid stagnancy. Moving kept the cold from latching on. BJ was on the head case. Margaret was assisting. Ever determined to be useful, Father Mulcahy stood by the blood storage unit, ready to grab whatever the doctors asked for.

"A healthier disposition than being completely useless _all_ the time," Hawkeye shot back. "How's that working out for ya?"

"Better than you ailing wit."

"Must be these cold nights interrupted by hot blood. I'll work on it, Chuckles."

"Now, now Hawk," BJ added, "I think you're confusing Major Winbag with old Ferret Face."

Charles let out a stiff laugh.

"Don't get excited Charles, there's only about a hair's difference between the two of you."

"Right," BJ said. "Frank still had some on his head when he left."

"Speaking of hair," Hawkeye mused, "Anyone see Old Man Clanton outside?"

**Next Chapter: Stars and Stripes. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: Stars and Stripes. **

_Mess Tent_

Hawkeye was in the mood for a dusty martini after the O.R. session. The O club was no dice, however. They were still rebuilding it after the prior week's come as your favorite war criminal party. That meant a date with the still. Nothing like burning a hole in one's stomach to relax. However, after five minutes of Charles' records and BJ's constant rereads of Peg's letters detailing the mass, shade, and regularity of Erin's bowel movements he decided a trip to the mess tent for a nice murky of coffee was just what he needed. Besides, a fight would inevitably ensue between all three bunkmates huddled around the heater. Charles would turn the record up to blare out the argument and BJ would demand he retreat to the Colonel's office for the rest of the day as he was the interim commanding officer. The cold and the boredom were getting to everyone. Hawkeye felt their pain, but didn't want to bare it with them. Not for the umpteenth time. So, he bundled up tight and tracked to the mess tent in search of a measure of solitude. He passed by Radar, clipboard clasped in hand, standing by the door, his glasses pushed up on his nose, his brow furrowed and strained.

"Radar, why don't you get inside? You're gonna end up our own personal snowman otherwise."

"Nah, that's okay. I'll just…uh…um…"

"What's the matter, short stuff?"

"Aw, nothing…"

"Come on, Radar," Hawkeye coaxed, "I know when our little muskrat's got something on his mind."

"You promise you won't laugh?"

"Of course."

"Okay, I'll tell—"

"Too cold to smile. If I do my face will chip apart."

"Aw come on, Hawkeye!"

"I promise, I promise!"

"Uh…I want an autograph."

"I have stop coming here. You rabid poachers are all alike! I come around for a good time and you jump on top of me! No respect for the famous! That's what that is! Outrageous!"

"Hawkeye, keep your voice down," Radar whispered loudly, checking to see if anymore inside was taking notice of their conversation. "You ask me what's the matter and all you can do is make things worse!"

"I'm sorry, really. Whose John Hancock are you after? Can't help you if it's Garbo. She doesn't come into town anymore since I started following her around. Course, I wasn't after an autograph."

"You know that guy that came in with the ambulance?"

"You mean Fred C. Dobbs?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I know who you're talking about. Has the hat and the whip."

"It's Indiana Jones!" Radar's eyes seemed to light up at the mere mention of his name. It spurred fantasies of voyages in distant lands and exotic locales, facing death at every turn whether it was the explosion of an angry pistol or the base of a pit of spikes. If adventure had a name it _was_ Indiana Jones.

"_Who?_"

"Don't tell me you've never heard of him," Radar blurted out. Out from behind his clipboard he revealed an old copy of Stars and Stripes. Hawkeye took it in his hands and examined it. It was turning yellow with age, but the print was still clear as daylight. The image accompanying pictured a younger (and shaven) Indiana Jones standing aboard the USS Brooklyn. Radar's Uncle Ed collected every article they'd written about Indiana Jones during the war years. During picnics and family socials, Walter "Radar" O'Reilly and a dozen or so of his cousins would get together, break out the papers and read about all the adventures Jones went on, finding bits of treasure and fighting the Axis all the way back to Germany. When Walter got drafted, Uncle Ed let him take a few in the hopes of coming face to face with the intrepid explorer and war hero who would no doubt be fighting the red menace.

"He's only the greatest American hero who ever lived. He took on the whole German army during the war! They said that Hitler killed himself cause he knew Indiana Jones was coming for 'em!"

"I think the rumors of his exploits might be a tad larger than life," Hawkeye scoffed as he examined the broadsheet. The headline read _Dr. "Indiana" Jones Victorious in the Mediterranean!_ The whole article detailed how Jones had whipped the Axis forces during the Allied invasion of Sicily and how _bullets seemed to pass through him as if he were a spirit_. This guy sounded like a comic book character. Like he could work over Superman and then have time to take out more Nazi's than Captain America on a good day…

…then in the afternoon he'd run for president and go to Korea before General Eisenhower knew where it was on the map.

"Says Doctor. Of what? Knuckle sandwiches?"

"Oh yeah," Radar said, matter of fact. "On top of being a hero and all around good guy, he's an archeologicalist."

Hawkeye held back a frantic laugh. "A what?"

"You heard me. An archeologicalist."

Hawkeye handed his newspaper back, put his arm around him, and began to escort him through the mess tent doors nearly knocking over a couple of nurses on their way out in the process. "Come, young Walter. Let us meet your _archeologist_ with terminal fisty cuffs."

Inside, Jones sat alone at a table, his brown, khaki clothes and graying beard clashing against the faded green fly net. He was cradling a cup of coffee in a naked hand while a pair of thick gloves rested nearby. The table he was seated at was quite a distance away from the heater where a half a dozen or so noncoms and nurses crouched trying to stay warm, no doubt thinking of a life back home and the winter holidays they'd be missing this year because of the stupid war. _Police Action_.

Hawkeye could feel Radar stiffen as they got closer to him. Despite it being colder than a skirt on a school teacher Hawkeye was certain the nearsighted corporal was going to brake a sweat. Jones was staring off into space as if preoccupied in the midst of something until he noticed them coming. His features softened some. He looked Radar dead in the eyes. He cracked a crooked smile knowing full well the mixture of fear and admiration seeping out of Radar's gaze. He'd seen it a million times, though not in a very long while.

"Wow, he's got his hat and his .455 Webley and everything." Radar was melting into Hawkeye's jacket.

"Don't forget his trusty bullwhip," Hawkeye added.

"Oh boy. 10 feet long. 12-plait thong of kangaroo hide, and a knobbed handle."

"Ladies and gentlemen, Radar: The walking trading card."

It seemed like it took an eternity just to get up to him. By the time they actually stood in front of him, he's hand was extended, ready and waiting for Radar to shake it. Jones could barely remember the last time he'd been treated like a movie star by some kid, but he still knew how to conduct himself.

"Hi," he said warmly.

"Oh…uh…aw…um," Radar stammered as he clumsily snatched Jones' hand and shook it.

Hawkeye took a step back as his grin grew from ear to ear. Radar's pitiful display was awe-inspiring. He was like putty.

"Hello, Colonel Jones, sir" he finally said.

"He's a _colonel_ now too. Pretty soon you're gonna tell me he's king of Korea."

"Hawkeye! He was in OSS! Sorry, sir. He's not familiar with your war record."

"I'm going to need my hand back...uh…"

"Oh, sorry, Colonel, sir" Radar exclaimed as he let go. "It's Radar…Corporal O'Reilly, sir. This is Captain Pierce."

"Call me Indiana _or_ Indy if you like."

"Oh, no, sir, I couldn't do that."

"Care to sit?"

"Oh, no thank you sir. I just wanted—"

"Wait a sec," Hawkeye bellowed half seriously. "_Mr. Personality_ here gets an invitation and I get a _buzz off_?"

Jones chucked. "Sorry about earlier. I was worried about Mac. Somebody dropped by and said he was going to be okay. Took the edge off, Captain Pierce was it?"

"Call me Hawkeye."

"Would that be George McHale, sir?" Radar's eyes were like two spotlights.

"That's right. Hey, guys, sit down."

It was amazing for Hawkeye to see the two of them. If he didn't know better he'd swear on a bible…well maybe an army manual…that Radar and Jones had grown up together if not known each other as far back as they both could remember. Indiana was incredibly plain spoken for a man of his education, but if anything it made Hawkeye grow fond of his presence and yes, respect this man whom only a few hours prior had been nothing short of obtuse. He was courteous to the young corporal and careful not to dash whatever holy image Radar had in his head, although his aged, grizzled form was enough. He was no longer the young adventurer of yesteryear. He was an old man. His time had come and gone. The world had changed around him and he didn't feel the same jolt at peril's bark that he once had, but whatever his feelings toward his place, his displace rather, in this world, he let Radar keep thinking him the man he was when the simple boy from Iowa was chewing on a pacifier. Truth be told, Radar could see it, but he also saw a dieing spark left within him. Somehow or another Radar knew he would ride again like good times gone. Maybe it was his knack for intuition, that same magic that helped him catch people's thoughts or hear the whirling blades of the choppers bringing causalities. Radar knew Indy would catch up with the times. Heroes like him were for all the ages. All times.

About a half an hour passed in pleasant conversation. Hawkeye occasionally cracked a joke, but he respected the moment. It belonged to Radar and he wasn't crass enough to steal it. Despite his mouth he gave a damn. When the time came, Hawk dug around in his pocket for a pen so Jones could sign the paper. When he felt the time was right so not to step on any toes he finally cut in.

"You're friend is resting comfortably…if you'd like to pay him a visit."

"Hey thanks. Wanna join me, Radar? Meet Mac?"

"Gosh! Thank you, sir." The three men stood and once Indy had replaced his gloves the trio headed for the door.

"I must say you're growing me, Dr. Jones. Seeing you two makes me all gooey inside."

Jones rolled his eyes. "Indy, Pierce."

"Hawk, Indy."

"Good to know ya, Hawk."

"This looks like the start of a beautiful friendship," Hawkeye acknowledged in his best Humphrey Bogart impression as he threw an arm around his two compatriots. Little did he know that before the day ended he'd mean it.

**Next Chapter: Fortune and Glory, Hawkeye. Fortune and Glory.**


	3. Chapter 3

This chapter is short. I'm sorry. Had a bid of writer's block toward the end.

**Chapter Three: Fortune and Glory, Hawkeye. Fortune and Glory. **

_Post Op_

"Hawkeye," Indy whispered as they entered the post op ward, "why does that nurse need a shave?"

"That's Florentino Nightingale," Dr. Pierce replied. "He usually works in section eight." Corporal Max Klinger, local nut and dressmaker dutifully passed out powdered juice to the wounded in his patented high heels and nurse's cap. Completing the ensemble was his bear sized fur hide coat, the dedicated transvestite refusing to let the cold force him into army fatigues. He'd rather turn blue than let any green onto his body, although that proved a harrowing task in the habitual mess tent rations fight where the food (if you had the stomach to call it that) took to the air, making causalities left and right. The tray, free of its powdered provisions, found itself tucked under Max's arm and heading toward Dr. Jones.

"Hiya, Hawkeye, Radar, and guest," greeted Max. "What brings you to the ward of the darned."

"Gee! Klinger!" Radar's voice was high pitched and cracking. "You're embarrassing me in front of the Colonel!"

"Colonel?" Klinger's eyes lit up like a spark. He nearly poked out Indy's eye with his nose when his face rushed into the doctor's. "How's about a kiss, big boy!" Pointless to say, Jones found himself at a loss for words…and a clear thought.

"Klinger," Hawkeye groaned, beginning a sentence that had crossed his lips more times than he cared to remember. "He's not that kind of colonel."

"Say what?"

"No rubber pink slip home."

"Aw, gee, Klinger…."

"Blast! And to think I nearly gave my heart away!" With that, the experience that was Max Klinger stormed out of post op into freezing winds, clicking heels and all.

"Still breakin' hearts, Jonesy," a weak voice joked. There was an untidy touch of the United Kingdom in the accent. "Good to see the shrapnel in my belly hasn't robbed you of your charm."

"Mac!" Jones exclaimed as jogged the row of beds to his friend. An agent of MI6, George McHale was a secret agent with a penchant for gambling and cheap women. He and Indy had worked together regularly ever since America's involvement in the war against the Axis, from WWII missions orchestrated by OSS and MI6 collaborations to independent archeological digs across the world.

"Looks like I can consider my debt repaid," Jones said.

"Never!" Mac insisted, only half serious. "You luggin' me onto an ambulance won't cut it, Jonesy."

"Excuse me sir," Radar interjected, hat in hand as if he were about to receive communion. "Would that be the time Col. Jones had a lugar pointed at him?"

"You're damn right!" Mac bellowed, finding an ounce of strength, his arms flailing beneath the covers. "And you might you be lad?"

"Aw, gee."

And so the session of hero worship began again between wet eared company clerk and smelly khaki clad legend. Tired of the routine, Hawkeye turned to leave, nearly ricocheting his gangly body off of a beaming Major Margaret Houlihan, Chief Nurse. "Ohhhhh, hello Major," Hawkeye dripped with salutation. "We should bump into each other more often. Want to skip over to my place. I'll put out the dog and cat, not to mention the welcome mat."

"Huh?" Her absentminded gaze finally addressed the graying doctor. "Oh, Pierce…no thank you…I've…just come to meet Colonel Jones…and see if he needs…attention…"

"Ahhuh." Hawkeye got the picture. "I think I'll just make some rounds. I'll try not to trip over your tongue on the way." Excusing himself, Hawkeye strolled the length of post op, checking charts and updating Nurses Able and Kellye, paying more attention to the tourist attraction of Indy and Mac, the monkey brothers with the accordion business. Since when did archeologists get such praise, and since when did they moonlight as secret agents?

"Maybe I should take to tunneling up bits of junk," Hawkeye mused to Kellye. "Then I could have a blonde nurse drool over me…if I don't dig up a landmine first."

**Next Chapter Coming Soon.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four: The MacGuffin.**

_Helicopter pad._

"Attention! Attention! Incoming wounded! Helicopters! Ambulances! The whole smear!"

A hunched over Dr. Pierce ran under swirling blades, his feet sinking deeper into snow with every step. Every time, it seemed, that Hawkeye found himself charging off a jeep up to the pad he bent lower and lower. It wasn't that he feared getting nipped by one of the helicopter blades. Rather his crooked back hid a slouch that got worse everyday with his disappointment. Call him a damned fool, or a damned _old_ fool if the war kept up, but sometimes he counted the seconds in between the sound of choppers like the sound of thunder. If he counted long enough the storm went away and with it the fighting. None such the luck today.

He saw BJ and Margaret running toward him attached to a stretcher, bearing the blast of the chilly winds stirred up by the spinning razors above. "Didn't we already do this dance," Hawk yelled as he passed by them. "Those were just the rehearsals," Beej shouted back as they hopped on the jeep and started back for camp.

He tore at the locks to pull off the shield covering the GI and asked the pilot over the grind of the motor how he was doing. "Must be a general's boy," he said with a thick southern accent. Sounded like Texas by the length of the twang. "Why's that?" Hawkeye questioned as he slid back the cover. "Cause I don't think them boys woulda bothered puttin' him on otherwise." As the light found the cavernous hole that used to be a face, Hawkeye grimaced. It was a combination of revulsion and overwhelming pity. _God…God!_ Nothing left below the brow line. The rest of his body was like a jigsaw puzzle. One arm dangled off the side of the stretcher, one leg had been set in what was left of his lap. Could the 4077 save him? Maybe. That was the terrifying thing. They _could_ manage to keep him alive, but did they…did _he_ really want to? Not a question. Tell a man he has to live like a piece of meat on butcher paper for the rest of his life and he'll tell you, no thanks, just go ahead and pull the trigger on that sidearm, soldier. The Hippocratic Oath had taken quite a beating in this hellhole. It could take one more. Pulse was weak. He'd lost a lot of blood. Wouldn't be long. "Help me lay him out. Let's let him rest."

War. The brush it painted with, red, and the art it created, for few tastes.

_Outside O.R. Hours Later_

Still covered in surgical garb and drenched in blood, Hawkeye stumbled out into the snowy camp followed by Beej and Charles, both of whom were staring, half conscious, into the middle distance. Probably still operating in their minds, like when a song gets stuck in your head and you can't get it out. The thin gown did nothing to add warmth despite being the top layer in a mountain of bloated cloth and rough coat fabric. Hawkeye couldn't summon the energy to tear it off. By the looks of the horizon, the day was turning to dusk and all Hawkeye wanted to do was sleep. Not even the bitter embrace of the acidic juice from the distillery offered any comfort. He'd have found the company of a nurse, but he was too afraid he'd use her as a pillow. He dared not even dream of one in his slumber. That too, could prove too exhausting for the gangly dead man walking.

Charles wined as he thrust his chest out and grabbed his aching lower back. "Working on a new mating call?" BJ asked. "Try more chest, less howling." Charles chuckled; a true sign of his utter fatigue. No retort. No banter. He too, was looking forward to losing himself in dozy dreams.

"Anybody notice how many civilians we worked on in there?" Hawkeye's sudden revelation came as a minor shock, the doctor typically jaunty and sarcastic even upon his last leg. It was enough to open both of his comrades' eyes wider than they had been in several hours.

"There were quite a few at my table if memory serves," Charles answered. "However, it all seems like a misty haze upon the meadow now, as terrible as that sounds."

BJ nodded. "After a while they all look alike. GI Joe or farmer Koh. What's the difference? Their insides are colorblind."

"Never ceases to amaze me," Hawkeye muttered.

The posse of doctors dispersed, all wishing they could head straight for their cots, knowing full well work still dangled over their heads. Charles went to the CO's office to resume command in the hopes that Potter had already done so while he was in surgery, BJ went to supply, and Hawkeye started for post op. Time to go on duty. Lucky for him he would be sharing that time with the angel of mercy herself, Major Houlihan. Maybe she could sing him a lullaby (yeah right). That little notion put the swing back into his step, however before he could slither over, he observed a Radar-sickle pacing the outskirts of the campsite. He knew that panicked amble. Knowing the inevasible complications it would lead to, Hawk drudged up the small but tedious hill on the camp's far side overlooking the road in.

"You're gonna turn into the 4077th's first snowman," Hawkeye said in the middle of a yawn. "Complete with pimples."

"Aw, Hawkeye, this is bad! Real bad!"

"What's the matter my small friend? Has your virginity run away to the minefield with a nurse you had your eye on? You can never trust 'em around a girl."

"Colonel Potter's not back from R&R yet."

"What?"

"You heard me. He's not here. He's never been _this_ late before!"

_Post Op._

Dr. Jones had been set up in the VIP tent. He had insisted on staying with Mac until he recovered. He checked in on him periodically. Even after two visits to his partner's bedside, he was still getting odd glances from the other wounded. Every now and again a few GI's recognized the sulking figure seated with whip dangling over a chair's armrest. It would start whispers amongst themselves about this _character_ of their childhood. There were a lot of young faces in post op. Got younger everyday.

Margaret's number of occasional glances over at the two from her station (and her reports) was interrupted by her annotations of the time and Dr. Pierce's lateness. She was angry, but not surprised. Ben Pierce was like an animal in many respects, cute, but dirty and untamable, nice to look at, but wild enough to be unable to be held to a schedule. In his defense the surgical session had been grueling on everyone, but she had been there too hadn't she, and yet she managed to be on time. _Soon enough,_ she thought, _he'll drag himself in here beaten and useless_.

One of the patients started howling. It was an older woman. One of the civilians injured in the last US attempt to grab land from the Chinese in a local village. She'd been hit pretty bad in the shoulder and had required a great deal of sedation. It was wearing off apparently and the pain was coming. Margaret stood and gingerly made her way over to calm her before she could administer another shot. She was sitting up in bed screaming and wailing in Korean, tears flowing from her eyes. Margaret tried to grab her arms and settle her down, but she was feral, rambling and screaming. "I can only help the pain if you let me," Margaret negotiated in futility, thinking talking louder would somehow reach the terrified woman. She had a clinched fist with a folded, crunched up cloth inside it. She waved it around in Margaret's face as she tried to stand up. The strong willed army nurse managed to keep her in bed, but she didn't know how long she could keep it up.

"Major," Indy had appeared at Hot Lips' side, the brim of his fedora brushing her golden hair into the front of her face. "It's not the pain that's bothering her," he said, overlapped by the clamor.

_Colonel Potter's Office._

The lights were dim and the window flaps down. Amidst an ocean of darkness and silent awe, Mendelssohn's War March of Priests boomed with frantic grace on a worn and adored phonograph. A reclined, redheaded listener immersed himself with eyes closed. The commanding officer pro tem was lost in memories of the symphony season, those precious times taken for granted. Walking the gardens of his home with beloved sister Honoria after a concert, nitpicking to pieces a performance someone had poured their soul into. Ah, to be in Boston once more. One hand cradled a glass of cognac while the other waved a pen back and forth to the rhythm of the music as if he were directing it. The stresses of the loathsome job had necessitated an interlude from the endless interruptions of a mousy company clerk, the ravings of harebrained Arab, the gory meatball operations, and the frightening reality that Charles Winchester was doomed to live out the rest of his days in a backwater lunatic asylum. His brow wrinkled in irritation. His mind would always wander back to the 4077th. It could never take the place of New England no matter how much he drank. There would still be rats, dysentery, and of course, _Hawk and Beej. _The mere thought of the abhorrent duo sent shockwaves through his spine. He gulped the last slip of his drink without savoring it. He sank deeper into the chair.

Over the music the sound of the door creaking open on its hinges broke Winchester's meditation. "Corporal," he groaned loudly, "I thought you were taking the rest of the waning day off to assemble at the feet of your boyhood hero named after a state whose only contribution to the world is the term, _Hoosier_."

"Better than being at the beck and call of a man whose only contribution to this camp is longwinded pomposity."

"_Pieeerce_," Charles snarled as he opened his eyes.

"Save it, Chuckles," Hawkeye barked back. "I need you to put out a call to headquarters and the MPs."

"Why on earth would I—"

"I've got headquarters on the phone for you, sir," Radar interrupted, bursting into the office.

"Why can't you people leave me be?!"

"Potter's late from R&R, Charles!" Hawkeye was in no mood. " Or didn't you notice your chubby can still squatted behind that desk." _I'm starting to sound like Sherm_, Hawkeye observed silently.

"He was due back hours ago!" Radar was becoming frantic.

"Come on!" So was Hawkeye. If anything had happened to Potter….he didn't even want to think about it.

Charles picked up the phone. Just then, they heard the ruckus coming from post op.

_Post Op._

Everything was beginning to spin. Potter was possibly missing in action, Charles was being given the run around with I-Corp, and it sounded like bloody murder in post op. By the time Hawkeye reached the bedside of the elderly woman where Hot Lips and Jones were, the worst seemed to be over. As Indy, who apparently knew Korean like the back of his hand, spoke to the woman, her distress seemed to dissipate. She answered him and he respectfully nodded and began to translate. "She says there were Chinese soldiers in her village…" he faded away for a moment still trying to fully understand the depth of the woman's crisis. "Killing many people. Men, women, children." The woman continued and Indy followed suit. "She was shot. GI's came. One grabbed her and put her in his jeep and tried to drive her to safety, but it overturned and the soldier's took him. She says he was old. Had a bird on his helmet. Thinks he was a general. Says he was hurt badly too. They _took_ him and a handful of others…and stole something else."

"A bird?" Margaret pondered. "Couldn't be a general. It had to be a colonel."

"Oh no," Hawkeye's heart sank.

"What?" Hot Lips asked.

"Potter's overdue from R&R."

"He's not _back_ yet?"

"No."

"Has to be a coincidence."

As if on cue Radar ran into post op. "Major Winchester just finished talking to headquarters. The Colonel left Seoul hours ago."

The aged woman lifted her hand slowly and opened it. Indy cautiously plucked up the rust colored cloth and opened it. It was an ancient manuscript with the ink soaked picture of a grape vine growing from the edges of a cliff.

"Jiso," the woman whispered. "Jiso." Indy's eyes lit up. His gaze returned to the cloth and the ancient lettering that ran below the image in angry, fitful strokes. "The Incident of the Five Tastes," Indy translated.

**Next Chapter: The Indy Map Line (Da De Dum Dum Da De Dum)**


	5. Chapter 5

**(Check my Profile for a pic I made for this pic.)**

**Chapter 5: The Indy Map Line (Da De Dum Dum Da De Dum)**

_Outside._

The whole thing was surreal. Ever since Dr. "Indiana" Jones showed up at the 4077 it was if reality were redefining itself. It was a similar sensation to staring into the coffin of a loved one during a viewing. Everything was really real for the first time. You remember the moment where you were self-aware again. You were seeing through new eyes. The difference was that the whole day had become eerily connected. Potter could have been missing along with a handful of others and a man as close as you could get to a superhero without putting on tights had shown up in the mix. Hawkeye didn't believe in God, but somebody had to be writing it. It was just too lyrical. He couldn't fight off the notion that it had tragedy written all over it either.

"Hey," he called, walking out of Radar's office to find Jones packing up a jeep with supplies. "What are you planning on doing?" Hawkeye was trying to be very calm. One of the few friends he had in that dump was possibly captured or worse, dead. He wasn't going to jump up this guy's flagpole from the get go, but he knew he was the only hope he'd have of seeing the colonel again.

"The woman says the Chinese have a hold of something archeologically…significant." Indy was cautious not to reveal the exact details. Assumptions and rumors lead to unsubstantiated expectations and disappointment. He had a very good idea of what it was. One of the greatest discoveries in the history of the world sprang to mind. It could bring new insight to the truth behind the creation of the planet. It could also be a big wild goose chase. Indy had seen his share of those over the years. Too many. In fact, for every momentous discovery he made, there were a half a dozen worthless leads that guided him toward zilch or worse, sand, dirt, and bullets. In this case, a valuable piece of Korean folklore could have been lying around in a small village ripe for the pickings. Hard to swallow. That didn't mean he wouldn't follow it to its conclusion. Important things often hid in plain sight. "I'm going after it. Gonna start in the village. Pick up a trail."

"What about the colonel?" Hawkeye asked.

"Doubtful."

"So just like that he has to die out there somewhere or—"

"It's doubtful that this guy was even your CO." Hawkeye cringed at Indy's use of the past tense. He might as well already be dead.

"What difference does that make to you? A life is a life." Hawkeye let his raw nerves show. "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of All-American hero."

"I'm a tenured professor of archeology," Indy scoffed. "Besides, they've probably already processed him at a POW camp."

"Your hunk of junk could already be heading to China."

"I'm counting against that."

"So am I."

"Look, doctor," Indy began. The rest of his sentence halted in his throat like a freight train. Behind Hawkeye, Indy spotted the faint glimmer of eyeglasses peering worriedly in the window of the door to the clerk's office. Radar had been eavesdropping on their conversation. Hawkeye saw Indy's preoccupation and turned to follow his line of sight. Radar's hopes were crashing, with them, faith in his hero. You could read it on the boy's face, plain as day. "How does it feel to be the latest fallen idol?" Hawkeye asked. He, too, had once been held high in the boy's mind. Radar, on Hawkeye's insistence, had gone into Seoul for a _good time_, advice that had lead to his being wounded and Hawkeye beating himself up for it and having to walk out on a surgery sick with a hang over. After Radar rightfully chastised him for it, Hawk had snapped. They had made up, but everything changed after that. Radar never had the same kind of admiration for him again. It was nice to be even with the kid, but it shouldn't have had to happen like that. It stung like nothing else. In Radar's naivety there existed a kind of truth, a plateau of high merit that children and young people saw in those they idolized and emulated. With age that faded. Experience had driven that solid certainty of good out of Hawkeye, Dr. Jones, and all men like them that had descended into the bitterness of sarcasm and pessimistic philosophy.

Indy fidgeted with his beard and lowered his head. "I've got a bad feeling about this," he admitted.

"Welcome to Korea," Hawkeye answered.

"Get in."

"Whoa there, fella. I'm a doctor. I stay behind until it's over."

"Your buddy's gonna need immediate attention, so will the others if we find 'em. Grab up what up you can and get in. You're driving."

"I've never done anything like _this_ before," Hawkeye confessed.

"Welcome to Korea."

He said goodbye to BJ and the gang a million times before he left. Even Charles.

_On the Road to Nowhere._

With a crude map (drawn by Indy according to the woman's description) of the way to the village slapped up against the center of the wheel, Hawkeye followed the road through a bunch of MP blocks where he explained what they were doing over and over again, while Indy slept, his feet kicked up on the dash and his hat over his face. The MP thing didn't bother Hawkeye. In fact, seeing them made him feel more comfortable because he knew that before long he and Jones would be completely on their own, left to whatever the future had in store. Things went smoothly for a while. Oddly smooth. Time passed without a hitch and Hawkeye was beginning to convince himself that the ride wouldn't prove complicated. His thoughts drifted toward what Jones planned on doing when and if they found Potter in the middle of this treasure hunt and who would be holding him and a gun pointed in his direction. What did he expect Hawkeye to do? Put up his dukes and get shot? This was insane. Impossible. There was no way any of this could work out all right. He just knew he'd seen the last of Sherm …and maybe his last sunrise. Worse, Jones appeared completely relaxed. How could he have nerves of steel? Hawkeye's weren't even solid enough to be called nerves of jelly.

_Ping! Ping! Ping!_

The all too familiar sound of tiny metal assaulting more metal rang in Hawkeye's ears. He instinctively ducked his head down. He jabbed the still sleeping Jones, who suddenly shook awake. "Are we there already," he muttered droopily. Before he had a chance to even begin to shake his drowsiness, machine gun fire erupted again. Call it a sixth sense or maybe Jones was just used to waking up to people trying to kill him, but like a cat landing on its feet, the old man, almost in one singular motion, slunk down and turned around, putting his stomach on top of his seat. His hat followed, Jones mashing it down hard. Indy stuck his head up once and managed to get a brief glimpse at their pursuers before another batch of warm lead whizzed past, nearly close enough to make a part in the middle of his head.

"Alfalfa isn't a good look for you," Hawkeye shouted over the engine, having been roared to life by the weight of his foot.

"Chinese," Indy responded, ignoring Pierce's humor. "Two of them on a bike with a sidecar. The passenger's got an AK. Stay sharp."

"I don't think I can."

"Why?"

"When I said goodbye to Beej, I had a drink. Just a couple…dozen."

_So this is how it ends_, Hawkeye thought. _Dead in an afternoon serial. I always wanted to go in a Rita Hayworth picture. Thems the breaks. _Despite the humorous cracks, Hawkeye's heart was pounding out of his chest. Every time a spray of gunfire swatted up against the jeep, it skipped a beat and he sank sideways and pressed his face into the jeep's stick. He had one hand on the wheel and took a few looks at the road when he didn't think a bullet was going to catch him in the skull. Miles of nothing so far, but Korea's landscape could transform whenever it felt like it and throw unsuspecting dodos off a cliff.

Hawk looked over at Indy. His pistol was drawn. Listening. Feeling out the pattern. He had to time it right. When the guy reloaded he'd catch him…

_Ping! Ping! Ping!_

_Wait…_

_Ping! Ping! Ping!_

_Wait…_

_Ping! Ping!..._

_Now!_

Indy straightened up and stuck the gun barrel onto the top of the backrest, which steadied and balanced his aim.

_PAPOW! PAPOW! PAPOW! PAPOW! PAPOW! PAPOW!_

The damn thing sounded like a rifle. Shaky and frustrated, Indy went back down and reloaded the gun underneath his raised stomach. The empty cartridges clunked when they hit the jeep floor and sounded like marbles as they rolled around. "We're going too fast for me to get a clear shot! They backed off when I fired, but they'll be coming back up any second!" On cue the rapid fire of the AK ate its way through the hull of the vehicle once more.

_Pop!_

One of the back wheels went. The jeep started swaying back and forth despite Hawkeye's attempts to keep it steady. Smoke rose from the engine and the jeep started to fight the speed. They were trying to cripple it. A stray bullet might have found its way into the jeep's mechanics or ricocheted off something and torn through the axel or fuel line. Whatever the case, Hawkeye's checkered life started to flash before his eyes. _It wasn't bad_, he marveled as the sorted memories jogged through his mind. "Slow down," he heard Indy say. He didn't have any time to argue and the rapidly declining state of the jeep made any dispute moot. He eased off the accelerator. He could hear the motorcycle revving up and getting closer. Suddenly, he found himself staring at Indy's boots on the seat next to him. His head shot up just in time to see Jones climb into the backseat and jump onto the sidecar cabin and its occupant. All the four letter words he knew garbled together at the same time and forced themselves from his lips. Time seemed to stand still around Indiana Jones. He was all over the guy. The AK had fallen away when the force of his weight hit the other man, sending it onto the road, getting smaller in smaller in a matter of seconds. He braced himself on the sidecar and lifted the man out by the collar and right hooked him into the snow. He was already a distant lump in the road when Indy thrust his boot on the other edge of the sidecar. The driver had taken his hands off of the steering and was pulling at his sidearm. Indy steadied himself just when the soldier got it free. Indy grabbed hold of the offending wrist and jerked him up. Panicked, the Chinese soldier fell to a single knee on the seat pad while his free leg's boot tried to find footing on the tail. His concentration was still on the road and where they were rocketing without a sense of direction. Up ahead a fork in the road approached.

Hawkeye watched with wide-eyed amazement and terror, all wrapped up in one heart racing emotion, unable to fully believe what he was witnessing. The jeep was still sputtering, but it kept the pace of the bike, which had managed to get a few feet ahead despite the driver having been wrenched out of the seat. "Oh no," Hawkeye suddenly observed, turning to look over his shoulder. On the other side of the jeep, a small panel truck full of combat ready chinamen raised their weapons. Hawkeye curled himself up into a ball in the floor of the jeep just in time to avoid the wall of gunfire headed in his direction.

"Jump!" It was Indy. "Go!" Hawk felt the jeep shutter and whine. They were coming aboard. "Jump!" He heard again. Swallowing his fear, Hawkeye reached out his hand and grabbed the first aide kit and tore it loose from underneath a snow covered boot sole and leapt over the jeep door, luckily, right into a waiting side compartment of a motorcycle. "Nice," a crooked smile greeted. Indy had won the exchange. Jones slammed on the breaks and let the wild jeep and the Chinese truck zoom off into the right tendril of the fork as they conversely went into the left.

The next seconds were blurred. Hawkeye saw stars while he laid his head back on the side cab. Hawkeye had never been at the verge of stroking out before, but he knew he was damn close. If he had been resting on the snow he was sure his temperature would have melted him through it. His ears were ringing and he felt like his head was under water. Kind of like being drunk on red wine, only with the sting of blood vessels breaking in his eyes. He shut them and focused on calming his breathing, cluching the first aide bag all the while. He heard Indy speaking. Calling his name. He ignored it. He had to catch his breath before he caught his death instead. He heard Jones calling again. Clearer this time.

"Are they still…chasing us," was all Hawkeye could bring himself to say.

"No," Indy replied gaily. "We made it, doctor."

Ten minutes must have passed and Dr. Chicken Liver was still shaking like a mangy dog. The cold wind whipping past had cooled him down, but he was still living his final moments in the jeep. After looking back a thousand times, Hawkeye was sure they weren't being chased anymore. However, he was troubled beyond just the terrifying experience of nearly meeting one's maker. That entire incident, shocking and death defying as it was, reeked to high heaven of something foul. _Sinister_ was the right word. Hawkeye was no soldier, but he'd never heard any story like what he'd just been through from the wounded that passed through the 4077. Even though his heart was still in his throat, he was determined to make sense of it. And for some bizarre reason, the chase had convinced him of where to start. Those men had gone out of their way to bring down a doctor and a rugged, scrappy looking, old man. It was time to set some things straight. "Why are you in Korea?" A simple enough question that until that moment had evaded asking despite the irregularity of such a man in the midst of the Korean Conflict.

"What?" Indy pretended not to hear.

"That didn't seem normal," as if Hawkeye knew what _normal_ combat was like. "I doubt the Chinese army would do something that crazy just to grab a couple of world weary Americans. I Mean I know I'm sought after, but that was ridiculous. They were expecting you."

"Yep," was all Indy said in response.

"There's more to this, Dr. Jones."

"Yep."

"You gonna tell me what that is, Mr. Glib."

"I'll explain on the way."

**Next Chapter: The Village.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: The Village**

Dr. Henry Walton 'Indiana' Jones was a Professor of Archeology and teacher at a college back in the states. One whose department relied on grants from the National Museum and as such, depended on Indy's unique talent to procure artifacts from the ancestors of modern civilization. With the Korean Conflict came an intense interest in the welfare of the country's rich history. Korean deity carvings, pottery, and everything in between were sought after not only by a curious pubic, but also a concerned anthropologic community. War made a mess of the past and destroyed delicate antiquities. Concordantly, it was not a place for the typical brand of scientist. True, every _field_ archeologist had to deal with robbers, vigilantes, and black marketers, but a full-fledged war and constant death were impossible work conditions. Yet, the demand remained. With war there was always a fascination in the land it was fought upon, particularly if it were a distant, far off place that people hadn't heard of before. It brewed mystery, fear, curiosity, and money and fame for the man with the guts to bring back spoils. Enter Dr. Jones. Even as he explained it his eyes lit up like nothing Hawkeye had ever seen, not even in the eyes of a blood hungry general. It was a vice of a different sort. Pure greed. Yet, Hawkeye couldn't find the nerve to hate Jones for it. There was something noble in the man's desire. He couldn't help it. Like a moth to flame he'd been drawn to the prize. Still, the sheer similarly to maniacs who barked orders to future dead men alienated Hawkeye from the full grasp of Indy's self-indulgence.

"So that's it," Hawkeye followed, still darting his head around at the passing trees. Every time the jeep backfired he nearly jumped out of his seat. "To dig in the dirt."

"That's the size of it," Indy assured.

"But, someone else brought a shovel and wanted to dig in the same spot."

"And settled on shooting at me and Mac."

"I have the same trouble looking for dates," Hawkeye joked. "Just without the bullets."

Jones had been there for a few months, asking around, and looking for leads. Of course, weeks before even stepping foot in Korea, he'd done his research and picked areas that looked promising based on its historical reputation supporting life and large groups of people, so he wasn't exactly in there blind. Mac, an old friend, could clear more ground. They'd been trekking through a hillside with a few trinkets they'd found earlier that morning when they ran into trouble. A handful of Chinese soldiers, armed to the teeth. Ordered over their bag of loot and dug through it.

"They dumped most of it," Indy cringed as he squeezed the steering bar and revved the engine. "Good stuff, too."

"Maybe none of it went with their home décor," Hawkeye hypothesized.

"It all amounted to the same thing. Money."

"Black Market?"

"You got it." They passed it all up, letting the few valuables Jones and Mac busted their asses getting sink into the snow. With the weather as bad as it was, any extra money could have helped and they threw it away like trash. They were looking for something specific and were hysterically tight ass about looking for it. Only one thing could get somebody _that_ anxious. _Orders_. Somebody on top the mountain wanted something out of the Korean countryside. _Had_ to be big. The big dogs didn't fool around with artifacts unless they thought it could all turn a major profit. Nothing like the small time black marketers. Big money. There were other possibilities. The occult reared its ugly head during wartime. He hoped it was more than taboo psychobabble about wining the war with magic. Indy would have never had the chance to find out one way or the other if that platoon hadn't shown up. Mac almost bought it, but despite getting sidetrack in a mobile hospital, Jones got his hands on a key that could lead him to whatever had the Chinese going crazy. That little bit of parchment from the woman was burning a hole in his back pocket at that very moment. The possibility of a wild choose chase kept creeping into his mind, but he remained steadfast.

"And I intend to leave here with something to show for it."

"Yeah," Hawk noted Mac's condition. "People around you tend to drop faster than a drunken prom date."

"It is a trend, I'll give ya that," Indy laughed, slapping Pierce's shoulder.

"Ahhuh," was all he could muster in response.

_Bombed out village in the middle of the woods._

Smoke was still rising, merging sky with ground, thick and black. Looking up was like staring into the charred face of a frying pan trying to find your own reflection. The huts still standing looked like giant hands had crushed them. Wood beams shuddered in the air stream like mangy dogs behind a chain fence. In some spots, one could see all the way to the ground where the heat of the shells' blast melted through and scorched the soil. Dead animals lied festering inside a small pen where they'd ran around unable to escape, the temperature inching higher and higher until it reached them. Those that hadn't burned to death faced the horror of having their stomach's explode. Popped like balloons. Their guts were frostbitten. A rough sight. As Hawkeye hopped out of the motorcycle's side cabin, first aide bag in hand he found himself overwhelmed by the palpable misery even in the absence of human life.

"Never gets easy, does it?" Indy's question seemed rhetorical. Hawkeye didn't answer. He didn't have to. Like Hawkeye, his understanding came was expected, having spent years shifting through the world, seeing the work of men with guns. Indy had stood there a dozen times, overlooking a devastation. Hawkeye had been right. Death followed Indiana around. Or was it Indiana that followed death? After all, fortune and glory was a path guided by the grim reaper.

"There's nobody here," Indiana concluded finally after a grueling silence inside the ghost town.

"Not quite," Hawkeye corrected at the sound of snapping wood. From the ruble of one of the house emerged a girl that couldn't have been more than nine. She wore a long peasant dress too thin to bare the cold. Her hair was knotted and wild. Her face was smudged with soot. Before Indy could blink once, Hawkeye was already by her side looking her over. "Wish we hasn't lost the jeep. We had blankets…" She wasn't wounded. Still, the compulsive Hawkeye continued to check her over. Finally he stood and patted her on the head, giving her a weak smile. "The battle probably left her an orphan," Hawkeye sighed.

Indy kneeled by her and brushed her hair back. He too delivered a feeble smile as if it were some consolation to her loss. She returned it. He spoke to her in Korean. She was hesitant, but as the conversation went on, she grew more at ease. "Her family's fine," Indiana revealed. "They sent her back to rummage through their home in case any more soldiers show up." Hawkeye marveled, as he did so often, how Korean families took their children's lives for granted. They made them walk through fields with long sticks looking for mines and scrape up all kinds of metal products to sell back to the army, including unexploded shells. A horrifying thought, but true. This girl's family was afraid that more men might come and kill them, so they sent the girl to pick through what was left of their home fully willing to take the risk that they might never see her again. A chill went up both men's spines. The talk went on several more minutes, Hawkeye looking on, his brow knitted together hoping that the information she parted with would lead them to Potter.

Indy took out the piece of parchment with the grapevine on it and showed it to the girl. She said something and pointed toward a tree-covered area at the mouth of the surrounding woods on the opposite side of where Indy and Hawkeye had arrived. "She says it's from the old man's home." In Korean, he asked what she meant. "A witch. Says the soldiers took him." Indy returned the parchment to his pocket as he stood and started for the break in the woods.

"Wait," Hawkeye pleaded. "Ask her about the Colonel. Had…has white hair…bird on his hat. Might have been around here when the fighting started."

Indy turned back to the girl and translated. She shook her head, said something and walked away back toward the remnants of her home. "She said she didn't remember seeing him."

"Great, now I haven't a pot to spit in," Hawkeye lamented. "He could be anywhere."

Indy was already peering into the opening in the woods. "There's a road back here. I see the hut…and something else." Hawkeye, his head sinking lower and lower, followed Indy, now convinced of Potter's demise. They came out the other side into an open space surrounded by snow-covered trees. The hut was small and had stone incorporated into its design. Enough to make a simple chimney. Next to the shelter was a jeep. US Army. The sight of it sent Hawkeye running passed Indy, digging through it for any signs that it might be the colonel's.

Indy disappeared inside the house. Hawkeye was too busy to notice, scouring the army vehicle like a hound. In the back of the jeep he spotted a blood-soaked envelope stuffed in between the seat and the hull of the jeep. His hands shaky from nervousness and the bitter cold, Hawkeye pulled out the paper inside, unfolded it and read. His heart sank.

_Dear Mildred,_

_You're last letter had me in stitches. Tell Cor—_

The rest was unreadable. The blood had soaked through it.

The letter still clasped in his hand, Hawkeye fell ass first into the snow. He pulled off his snowcap and chucked into the snow. When Jones found him, having washed out in the witches hut, Hawk hadn't moved. His back was to him and his head was tucked in between his knees. Indy got the gist. His CO was down and out…for good. Indy wasn't good at consoling people. For a while, he just stood there in the doorway of the hut itching the hair beneath his hat. Finally, he sat down next to him and dug around in his satchel. "How about a drink?" Hawkeye picked his head up and stared into the dark brown liquid like a crystal ball for an answer. All he saw was an image of Potter choking out his last breaths while his blood reddened the snow. His head slunk back down. "I'll have one then," Jones decided. A deep silence passed, only broken by the slush of cheep hooch into Indy's throat.

There were a million and one things Indiana could have said to try an ease the pain, none of it anything but hallow platitudes, each of them encouraging Hawkeye to carry on. For what it was worth, Hawkeye appreciated his quiet. He remembered all the times he'd had to tell someone in post op that their friend didn't make it, or they, themselves, would never see, walk, or whatever again. Half the time they'd curl up and sob. Worse, they'd lean forward and grab him and he'd say the most terrible thing anyone could say in that moment. _It's okay_. It wasn't. Ever. And it never would be again. How could anyone say to somebody trapped in a war zone? And sometimes for two plus years, each day aging them, crippling them. This death was just the latest in a mountain of chaos and hurt. So, this time it was a friend. Tomorrow it would be someone he wouldn't know. Maybe one day he'd buy the farm on a Korean plot himself. What did it matter? Any of it?

Hawkeye finally put out his hand. The slick embrace of the bottle did nothing to sooth him. The liquid, bitter and smoldering, only broadened the lump in his throat. His blank gaze spread across the whitened landscape, searching for any detail that could occupy his mind. He saw her before Indy did, the little girl from before, walking the road through the woods. She stopped when their eyes met. She gestured to them. Sweeping her hand towards herself. Indy nudged him. "Lets see what she wants. Then I'll take ya back to your camp. Come on." Hawkeye set the empty bottle down and scrambled for his footing and his snowcap. Ice had gotten in it and the particles curled through his hair to his scalp when he put it on. He stayed close behind Indy as they approached her, his eyes following the indention of his boots, and his mind a daze.

The sound of war brought him back. The clack of weaponry as the hammer pulled back and the heat of a sight studying a target was a feeling he was getting used to. He threw his hands up, no shock, and no expression. He didn't give a damn. Indy did the same. He, on the other hand, was astonished by the girl's betrayal. One of their captures dropped money at her feet and she scuttled for before it disappeared in the snow. There were four men altogether. Their faces were familiar. The fellows from the truck that they had so cleverly evaded.

**Next Chapter: The Late Sherman Tecumseh Potter**


	7. Chapter 7

(Another short one. Hopefully the rest wont be.)

**Chapter 7: The Late Sherman Tecumseh Potter**

It was night when they were ordered off the truck and ushered into the Chinese camp. A modest location, it was comprised of four tents mashed into a circle around a small clearing a few kilometers off a main road. A small generator pumped electricity to a hand full of lights, illuminating the site in an eerie glow. Huddles of human forms crunched together to keep warm at the epicenter. A very small force. Only about a dozen men. The group looked more like a militia than a branch of the Chinese Armed Forces. They had the brown, double-breasted tunic, wool limed caps, etc and were generally in uniform, but they looked ragtag and embittered, as if they had endured a long tour. Exceptionally so. Hawkeye knew that deadeye gawk. GIs called it the _bone yard stare_.

Surprisingly, their captors lowered their guns and disappeared inside a nearby tent. Indy struggled to see through the flap while Hawkeye found little relief in the dark, gloomy sky. "See a bad moon rising, Pierce?"

"No, I see a star falling," Hawkeye answered, his first words since reading Potter's letter. "Mine."

"Buck up," Indy ordered bracingly.

"Sorry. I'll try to look less like I know I'm about to die. At least I won't have to break the news to everybody." The men returned and waved them over, guns drawn. "Our table's ready." Once side, the two gun-toting soldiers excused themselves.

Inside the tent, Indy expected to see the commanding officer wallowing in better comforts, no doubt a man above his peers. On the contrary, the ten proved minimal. There were a couple of chairs, a desk, and a desk light. No cot. He had his back to them. He sported a buzz cut and a visible scar on the back of his head that ran from the top of his skull to the bottom of his neck. He appeared to be writing something; pointedly pretending he didn't notice them. This little façade went on for several minutes; the only sound in the tent the scratching of his pen on paper.

He finally turned to face them, taken aback to see them standing there, as if it were all some chance meeting. He looked to be about in his mid forties, though he had a few extra wrinkles to his credit that belonged on an older man. His lip line was impressively long on both ends and touched both ears when he smiled and stood to greet them.

"Dr. Indiana Jones," he began with strikingly perfect English. "You're reputation had me thinking you much larger than life. I can see now I had no reason to fear." He looked him up and down, noting the thick layer of grit that covered Jones from head to toe.

"Who might you be?" Indiana pondered, ignoring the jab.

"My rank will be sufficient. Major. And who are you soldier?" The Major asked of Dr. Pierce, who didn't answer.

"That's Doctor Pierce. He's with a mobile army surgical hospital. A MASH. 4077."

"4077…" The major seemed taken away for a moment, thinking on the number. He shook the thought. "Can't he speak for himself?"

"Not up to it."

"I see." He didn't like that. There was a certain incensed curl in his voice that tipped Indy off. "I'd have my men loosen your tongue if I had the time."

"Here it comes," Indy whispered. Wasn't the first time he'd played mister step 'n fetch for an enemy. Always easier to let the old horse that knows how its done grab what you're looking for. His tangles with his old nemesis, Rene Belloq, were never far from his mind. The smarmy Frenchman hated getting his hands dirty, settling on trailing Jones the whole way until it was time to claim a prize he didn't have to work for, relying on finding the muscle to help him do it. However, as the old saying warns, he didn't keep an eye on who he chose to know and it cost him. Being the better men didn't mean you won every day; it meant you lived to see the next.

"You two will be going inside the temple."

"_Two_," Hawkeye repeated, his eyes alive again…with fear. "I'm not going in there with him. He's the archeo—"

"You will go!" The major was not a man who took to his orders being questioned, especially by prisoners.

"Nope." Hawkeye defiance made Indiana nervous. He put a hand on his back to silently caution him. He wouldn't have any of it. He shook his head and continued to refuse the order. "Why bother? We're gonna die anyway. Might as well keep the trend going. CO dead, chief surgeon dead. Keep it going. You're on a roll."

Thee major's smile widened. "I seems I have found the right incentive." With that revelation he hollered in Chinese. His voice carried outside. Booming. There was a sudden commotion out in the camp. Hawkeye shrunk from his post and held his breath, sure that the final moments of his life were at hand. Outside, a voice, muffled by distance, but clearly familiar melted his icy depression, sending a chill and a burst of elation through his body.

"Damn it!" … "Keep your hands off me!" … "You understand English?!" … "What in the name of Samuel bless-ed Adams are you doing?!"… "My arm's still attached, Bozo!"

**Next Chapter: Reunion & The Puzzle of the Temple Guard**_. _


	8. Chapter 8

_(Sorry for the delay. I was dealing with some minor writer's block and put a lot of thought into this chapter.)_

**Chapter 8: Reunion & The Puzzle of the Temple Guard**_._

Pierce nearly jumped out of his skin pushing passed armed gunmen just to see him. Sherman was standing with a few others that had been taken captive, presumably from the village Hawk and Indy had been snagged at. They were all huddled inside a primitively constructed chain mail fence. A few of them were lucky enough to have blankets and few basic necessities. Potter had been removed from the cage as an incentive, as the major had put it. Escorted by more soldiers, they pushed him toward the camp's epicenter where Hawkeye had darted from, upon hearing his C.O.'s voice. His shoulder was taped up. His arm was in a sling, stained scarlet with his own blood. The few spurts of pigmentation on the typically pale C.O. had bled straight into his nose in an escape attempt from the cold, making him look like a queasy town drunk who'd had his clock cleaned after giving a married woman the eye. "This town ought to do something about you rummies." The giddiness in Hawkeye's voice didn't do his mood justice. It was like having bipolar disorder. He'd gone from the lowest of lows to a manic high. Yoyos couldn't keep up. It took every ounce of strength to keep him from breaking down and wailing, but as Radar once put it, people looked to Hawkeye for more that just his clowning.

Sherman Potter was about as cuddly as a cactus on a desert planet with twin suns. As prickly by nature as the colonel was, the crisis at hand only ruffled his feathers further. But, do you think that stopped Hawkeye from wrapping a big squeeze around the old bird? Sherman's eyes could have popped out of his skull if he'd held on any longer. "Easy, Pierce," his CO ordered sternly, but clearly glad to see him. "People will get the wrong idea."

Stepping back, Hawkeye inspected his shoulder. "You said you wouldn't push me away in public anymore!" Pierce's humor was back as well. He wasn't firing off a mile a minute, but he was easing back into his crust. It got better with every minute he knew that Potter being alive wasn't a dream. The shoulder looked okay. He couldn't say the same for the arm. It was stable, but it looked like there was some tendon damage close to the wrist. He couldn't see the extent of it. As a surgeon, Hawkeye knew how important it was for a fellow chest cutter to keep the use of his hands. He couldn't say for sure one way or the other how Potter would fair healing up given the circumstances. If they got back to the 4077, he'd be able to assess the damage better, but that meant living through this nightmare.

"How are things back home?" Potter never liked being out of the loop about his unit. It was as much an appendage as his hurt arm. If someone was shearing the nail bed, he damn sure wanted to know about it.

"Well, we detonated the first H-Bomb, much to the chagrin and mortification to living people everywhere and General Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson in the presidential race."

"Not that home, Pierce."

"As usual, except thinking you're dead. Radar was walking little corporal trenches in the snow."

"And what the hell are you doing out here?" The question came as a small surprise. It was a fair inquiry though. It was uncharacteristic for Hawkeye to take chances outside the operating room unless something was really gnawing at him. Pierce's interruption of the peace talks a few months back had been spurred by an increase in necessary points to be rotated home. Even then, something self-serving at one level or another prompted the mania. Hawkeye proved selfless time and again, but the longing to go home had become a master passion—an addiction. One that dictated his every move, his every waking breath, as it did everyone whose years were quickening while an entire world got further and further away. Potter instantly regretted the question, but made no mention of the fact. When a friend is worried enough about you to come looking for you, it put ice in the veins when you asked why.

"Looking for a date." Hawkeye's sarcasm was razor sharp. Potter had raised a measure of offence.

"Bring your better half?"

"Huh?"

"B.J."

Hawkeye's cheesy grin could have rivaled a cherub's leer. "No, I brought Buffalo Jones." Charles Jesse 'Buffalo' Jones was a hunter and bison enthusiast once chronicled by Potter's favorite author, Zane Grey.

"Who?"

Hawkeye had lost track of Indy in all the commotion. He was so damn happy to see Sherman that everything else had dulled away. In war, moments like that lost their bite quick, and before long you wound up right back in the pit, face to face with a man's breath and the icy muzzle of a gun pointed in your direction. Hawkeye hadn't noticed before, but there were quite a few staring at him, behind them little orbs plopped in the darkness. Eyes. The cold, languid chinamen had formed a circle around them. Hawkeye looped his arm around Potter's good one and held on like a son clinging to a father. As the silence lengthened, his grip on Potter grew tighter. Past them, he could see the Chinese major and Indy speaking quietly, standing in the open mouth of the tent. They were shoulder to shoulder, looking at a broad manuscript. Indy held one edge, the major held the other. Hawkeye wanted to lead Potter through the crowd to the other side and get closer, but he didn't want to initiate his own death sentence.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Indy came over, looking freakishly calm, pushing past the small platoon. They paid him no never mind, their eyes refusing to leave Pierce and Colonel Potter. Could they smell fear?

"Colonel—" Hawkeye introduced unsteadily. "I give you a man that singes the ground he walks on. Doctor Disaster himself—"

"Henri Defense!" The ornery old doughboy 's no-nonsense façade liquefied and disappeared inside an affectionate embrace. Indy smiled and returned a pat on the back, astounded to find that Doctor Pierce's lost colonel was an old friend from another time and another war. Hawkeye buried his face into his hands unable to diminish the horror of being left out in another adulation fest. _Good God_, Pierce thought. _Where the hell have I been?_ Korea. Despite the nation being the answer to just about every life dilemma that popped into Hawk's head, this time the simple, pacifist, answer, couldn't do the job. Indiana Jones was like something out of another universe. His mere existence spat in the face of Hawkeye's pessimistic worldview. Even Indy himself, though cynical via age, was full of a life—a lifetime of experiences that Pierce had never dreamed possible. And worse, everybody knew who Jones was _but_ Hawkeye. Was there a reason for that? Some masked resentment that had kept the brightness of his adventures from being a part of Pierce's world? Or was the easygoing doctor from Crabapple Cove not as worldly wise as he thought he was? Whatever the reason, Indiana Jones was alien to him. An invader from another reality, one Hawkeye wasn't sure he loved or hated.

"You—know each other?" Hawkeye grumbled through his hands.

"Know each other?!" Potter treated the question as an absurdity. "Jones once stole a horse out from under me during the Battle of Amiens. Been friends ever since."

"If you call nearly getting me court-martialed being friends." Jones remembered it differently. The two shared a brief, but hardy laugh, at what Pierce thought was his expense.

"Doctor Jones!" The major and all his fury interrupted the brief interlude from more pressing matters. He'd exercised patience before, but the cold—not to mention the overly light brand of conversation—had chipped away at it. "Perhaps it is time to get down to business." He would not become an afterthought. He seemed to appear in the midst of the trio out of a puff of white smoke, barking and jerking them around like ill-mannered children. Hawkeye let the officer push him, not daring to make a fuss until it came time for Potter to be herded. The major shoved him back toward the fence. "Hey!" Hawkeye wasn't about to let him slip through his fingers. He bolted for his friend, but was met with a clicking of triggers. Behind him Indy, grabbed for his pistol, only clutching air and an empty holster. Hawkeye stopped dead—terrible time for that word—however, his boots glided on the ice-laden ground and tripped him up, introducing his buttocks to the frozen earth. The major shared a laugh of his own with his men. "One never dangles the incentive for too long—or the quarry is moot."

* * *

"What exactly is this guy after?" Hawkeye kept his voice low so not to anger the already testy major, who, at that very moment, was marching them at gunpoint away from the camp. He kept a leisurely pace behind them, eyeing them cautiously. He had a duffel bag thrown over his shoulder, filled with digging equipment. Tools that he didn't trust in his captives' hands yet.

Indy waited a dozen steps before answering. "A grapevine," he answered seriously.

Hawkeye clinched his jaw to keep it from falling into the snow in front of him. "Are you kidding? Grapes? Is he some kind of crazed winophile? He'd have Charles' respect."

"Quiet!"

"Sorry, fella. A man and his fruit are—" The rest of the joke would have been amusing had it managed to cross Hawkeye's lips. Instead he found himself walking on nothing and being pulled back by Jones from sure destruction by his limp, army lapel. Bits of rubble, once part of the precipice Hawk's boots had franticly clawed at, fell into the darkened abyss. The mouth of the hole was jagged like a monsters teeth, inviting only to the suicidal. The night air swarmed around it and sucked inward, like it was taking a massive breath.

"Hey, Indy?" Hawk painted heavily, standing on his own two feet again. "I have this funny taste in my mouth."

"What?"

"My heart."

The major had dumped the duffel bag; oblivious to Pierce's near death experience. After the slightly cumbersome task of sifting through the contents, he wrapped his hand around a smooth cylinder. The flashlight's beam shined along the hole's edges until he found the image of a stake, driven into the ground to the head and the rope attached, the length of which disappeared down into the cavity. He pulled it up. Indy made note of the time it took him. _Long drop_, he thought.

The bag set gently into the darkened chasm, guided unsteadily by the flashlight. The light gave no real indication of the surroundings at the bottom, and given the weakness of its shine, Indy doubted it would give him a decent look at the place. Annoying, but typical. The smaller, one man, excavations Indy was prone to doing often hid the majesty of the locales, limiting his sight to the narrow flush of a flashlight or the slightly more illuminating blaze of a smoldering torch. _Smoldering torch_, he thought. _My life in a nutshell_. Like his colleagues across the archeological spectrum, Jones didn't age a year at a time; rather he aged with each adventure, no matter how celebrated. This was no truer when his feet pushed against the rock/mud wall, supporting his entire lower body. Indy's knees were damn near shot. The gloves kept his hands from skinning on the rope as he warbled too expediently down the line. Both of his knees popped and pulsed in agonizing protest when he came down on them from a near straight drop.

"I heard that all the way up here," Hawkeye joked meekly, knowing he was next. "Your knees are gonna sue you for divorce."

"You're next." The major waved him on with his pistol.

"Look, why don't I stay here as lookout. You never know when a patrol might come by and break up this little party of yours."

"Get moving!"

"There's nothing I'd like to do more than crawl down into that compact, condensed, compressed, crowded, crammed, miniature, minuscule, microscopic, teeny, teensy, tiny, and just plain terrifying hole—but I have this thing—malady—ailment—sickness—disorder—disease—and I ain't talking VD—_but I wanna tell ya folks_—"

The major took a step closer. "Get…moving." It was a rasp more than as whisper.

"Have you ever heard of claustrophobia? Fear of small deathtraps? Why do you want me down there anyway?!"

The major took another step forward and pressed the barrel against Hawkeye's chest. "You can climb…or you can fall."

"Ahuh. Plan A it is." Hawkeye turned and gingerly walked up to the mouth of the hole. After a few million deep breaths, Hawkeye managed to turn back and get onto all fours. It looked like he was smelling the ground. Slowly, his boots inched toward the ledge.

"Stop, stop." The major sighed. "Let me help."

"Thanks I—"Before he could finish, Hawkeye found himself clutching for dear life. He hugged the line in time to keep himself from falling to his death. However, the experience proved more painful as he slapped up against rigid rock. By the time he half consciously made it to the bottom, he could feel his cheek swelling up. The intense approach of paranoia didn't hit him until he had shook the cobwebs enough to stop seeing stars and start seeing black nothingness extending out into oblivion. It looked like forever, but he could feel it, a dense crypt sheathing him in certain doom. He dove his hands out in front of him, but could not see them. His knuckles brushed up against something solid and cold. The wall that had kissed him on the way down. His shoulder was throbbing where the major had kicked him, but all he could think about was breathing. He couldn't. His intakes were short and stiff. He stumbled around waving his arms wildly until his hand found prickly hair and the tip of a jaw line.

"Ow!"

Indy's voice didn't help. He grabbed at him and wrapped his hands around his collar. "Indy! I can't see and I can't breath!"

"I don't feel it. There's plenty of air."

"I'm not talking about you. Me! I can't see! I can't—"

"Hold on, let me turn on the flashlight."

"Yea—yea."

"Claustrophobia?'

"In spades." He felt Indy try to pull away from his grip, but he clutched tighter. "No, No! Not until you get a light on in here."

Indy's face seemed bathed in firelight. They were sitting around a campfire instead of a dark cave. The idea brought memories of roasting marshmallows and telling scary stories back in Maine. It only blotted out the fear and the thick, dense air long enough for him to keep from hyperventilating. He followed the flashlight's ray up to the hole where he'd come falling. Looked like they were at the bottom of a well. A narrow, tightly packed, cramped, well. His head started spinning. It could have sprouted a propeller and floated away. Hawkeye's eyes darted around, seeing portions of the rocky enclosure. "Boy, closer than I thought it would be. Hoped maybe it would be a nice wide-open estate. Nope. It's a charming little nook. You ever read that in house ads in the newspaper? _Charming_? It's real-estate jargon for _small_."

"Take it easy," Indy said as he turned away, forcing himself free from Hawkeye's anxious grip.

"Where ya going?!"

"Gonna look for the statue."

"What?!"

"Our mutual friend and I had a discussion back at his encampment. Talked about this place…a massive entryway, with two solid slabs acting as panels into the temple—"

'Temple?"

"—and the statue that guards the entrance."

"Eight steps ahead." The major strode into the limited light to join them. His pistol's metal hide shined brilliantly like the twinkle of a star. Temptation to verbally jump the major about their altercation escaped Pierce. He was calculating how much air was left and how to spilt it up between the three of them.

The statue was the first thing that leapt into their collective vision as Indy and the major moved forward. Staring back them, inert, yet somehow brought to life by the flickering shadows, stood the temple guard in all his—or her—or _its_—ferocity. "Looks like my first date," Indy said. Carved in stone, the creature stood guard with spear in one hand and arm of a cradle in another. The artist had adorned it with chiseled fur, the rock simulating the waves of its thick coat all around the body. The hands were big and flat, mirroring the feet. The toes were curled over the sculpture's base. On its face, the stare was blank due to age and wear. The features had all but eroded away. Best as Indy could tell upon closer inspection, emphasis had been put on the jaw and lower areas of the face, which was more like a snout, unusually long for a primate. "Looks like an early man, but the muzzle—the snout is so long. I've never seen anything quite like this."

Over the statue's shoulder they saw the grand entryway Indy mention and the ever-slight hint of a break in-between two slabs of solid rock. The door.

"Hey, is it just me or are the walls caving in?" Pierce interjected, an apropos of nothing under discussion.

Indy peered closer, but the wearing down of the figure's features made it impossible to determine anything beyond the incredible lengthiness of its face. The simplest answer, as Occam's Razor advises, is the best one. In this case, an exaggerated form of a 'temple guard' represented as some sort of demon or spirit, was erected to protect the site, based on local folklore, specifically the birth of human civilization as told by Korean ancestors. This shaggy beast was the first generation of humans created in the _Incident of the Five Tastes_, the Korean story about the birth of the world. Despite Indy's basic knowledge of Korean customs and traditions, he had a gnawing feeling in his stomach the longer he stared at the statue.

"The inscription, Doctor Jones." The major reminded him. Even if Hawkeye had been paying any attention to them, he wouldn't have understood. He had not been privy to their conversation at the camp.

Indy crouched, his knees still sore from coming down. He ran the flashlight's pale yellow shaft of light across the aged platform. The lettering was still visible. "Only the heavenly people, pure of spirit and nature, may pass. Replenish the divine cradle with life and end Jiso's famine."—Indiana translated. "In Korean folklore, the _heavenly people_ were born from the womb of the goddesses Gung-Hee and So-Hee, who were born from the womb of Mago, to revive Yul-Ryeo, another deity." Indy turned back to his two on looking compatriots and continued to think aloud. Hawkeye's eyes were shut tight as he breathed heavily in silence. The major watched Jones intently. "With the appearance of the heavenly people, Yul-Ryeo is reborn as the world. And the others live in a fortress called Magoseong. There were two heavenly men and two heavenly women. All four married and had 12 children. One of whom was—Jiso. They spoke without words…acted without…seeing" His memory was fading. Another fault of aging. "He ate from the grapevine, obtained the five tastes of sourness, bitterness, spiciness, sweetness, and saltiness. The others ate from the grapes and grew teeth, salvia…and created…these ape beings. Humankind's ancestors. But, why is the answer to this riddle…and I can't remember why he did it…why he ate from the grapes. Hunger…"

"How do we open the door?" The major asked.

"I don't know. Replenish…with life…" Indy repeated the riddle over and over in the hope that the answer would come to him if he jogged his memory. "Replenish with life…_Jiso's famine_. Hunger. Hunger's the reoccurring theme." Indy pushed the brim up on his hat as if some sign of his concentration and state of mind.

"Milk," Pierce said, suddenly, his eyes still closed. A thick sweat had built up on his forehead and his cheek was puffed tight and turning purple. "Babies drink it. They're pure and they sleep in cradles."

A crooked smile widened on Indy's face. "That's it!" Indy exclaimed. "Earth's milk. The spring that ensured purity of life. There were too many people in heaven and not enough of it to go around. Jiso impatiently waited for a chance to drink, but instead decided to end his life, and before doing so found the grapevine. He ate from it and told the others. After they grew teeth and hair, they couldn't see heaven and stormed the Magoseong fortress in an attempt to use the earth's milk to save them. It only made it worse. The beginning of the human race. We need milk!"

"There is none at the camp." The major's hopes were dashed.

"We could wait until the weather clears and get some. You must have some access to a supply line?"

"That could take weeks! I need results now…and a dead American war criminal like you means more than nothing!" He raised the pistol.

Hawkeye, still in his claustrophobic trance, dug around in his jacket pocket and produced a pouch of powered milk. "Just add water. Maybe you could use my sweat."

**Next Chapter: Hawkeye Pierce and the Curse of the Five Tastes A.K.A. Indiana Jones and the Magoseong Fortress**


	9. Chapter 9

_(UPDATED: I saw a few spelling errors in a reread that compelled me to make some corrections. The chapter remains otherwise the same.)_

_(Clear allusion to a future Indy adventure in this one. See if you can guess which movie.)_

**Chapter Nine: Hawkeye Pierce and the Curse of the Five Tastes A.K.A. Indiana Jones and the Magoseong Fortress. **

B.J. Hunnicutt was more than just a cheesy mustache and enormous feet. The homey doctor from Mill Valley brought with him to Korea a trove of quirky and otherwise useless recipes for messes that could barely pass as food to a guy who carried his teeth in a bag. Some of the stuff he could concoct was no better than brushing your teeth with a Milky Way. It was pure childishness transformed into hot, greasy, troths of sugar. So, of course, Hawkeye couldn't ever resist.

Two weeks prior to the events that led Hawkeye into the unknown abyss with Indiana Jones, B.J. had aroused his fellow doctor from a deep slumber and an ill thought rendezvous to a balmy beach with one of his favorite movie stars. "Arise, Igor!" Beej had announced, the steam from his breath burning the hair in Pierce's nostrils. Instinctively, Hawkeye smothered himself in his pillow, muttering something about baby oil. "Arise!" B.J. shook him, blanket and all, the rattle of the cot disturbing Winchester's own tryst with a dream; he grumbled something and turned over.

"She meant nothing to me, Marlene...hey…smoke a cigarette for me…"Hawkeye pleaded languorously.

"Only if you vake up!" B.J. could never do Marlene Dietrich justice. He also wasn't getting anything out of Hawkeye besides murmuring and snores. To remedy it, he took one of Hawkeye's nudist magazines, rolled it up, and swatted him not once, not twice, but five times. Hawkeye sat up, still bundled tight in his layers of isolation.

"Okay, fella, you just jilted the most gorgeous woman in the world!" He treasured his dreams so very much.

"You're not that good looking, Hawk. Maybe if you'd shave—"

"What—do you—want."

"A snack."

"What? You make me stand up Marlene just so you can have a snack? Go get it yourself! Why do you need an audience?"

"I want you to help me make it."

"I don't see a ring on this finger."

After a twenty more minutes of arguing and realizing that there was no way Hawkeye was going to get any more sleep that night even if the sandman himself showed up and shot him the face with a sand missile, he agreed to be a part of B.J.'s snack quest. All this, of course, required looting the kitchen and making use of a pan. Beej explained this sudden obsession by describing the amount of grease left on said pan and what it could be done with it. "If you're trying to bring last night's dinner back to life, you're gonna need more than the solidified remains of its juices," Hawkeye informed in the middle of a yawn.

"Get me the corn flakes and some milk," B.J. said, lighting the stove to life. "We're going to make a breakfast bar."

"Huh?"

"A bar. Like candy."

Hawkeye groaned in protest, content to warm himself in front of the heat. "Should I go raid a cemetery for spare parts while I'm at it, master?"

After getting the necessary paraphernalia together, or whatever equivalent he could find in the 4077, Hawkeye watched his friend create something that looked like what dogs left in the minefield behind camp. "You use the grease as adhesive and the milk to keep some moister so the flakes don't burn up. Speaking of which—" Beej held his hand toward Hawkeye expectantly. Hawkeye handed him a pouch of powered milk. His friend's eyes could have dropped right out of the sockets into the pan and fried like a couple of eggs.

"What? You didn't actually think we had real milk around these parts, did ya? Where the hell do you think you are, Grandma Hunnicutt? Back home?"

"Attention! Come one, come all! Wounded in the compound!"

There was no time for a quarrel, but for some reason Hawkeye was slow on this particular uptake. He watched Beej shut the stove down and fly out the door, still surprised that he had tried, in vain as usual, to make the 4077 more like home, and in that instance, he regretted what he'd said. There was nothing wrong with trying to make an uninhabitable hell more—well, habitable. He grabbed up the pouch and stuffed it inside his jacket, as if some token of an apology for a buddy no longer in the room, and staggered out of the Mill Valley kitchen and back to the war.

* * *

Indy's hands clasped around the stone cradle in anticipation of the powdery storm that would have enveloped him otherwise, turning the rusty doctor into old Saint Nick. He removed his hands and shined the flashlight inside. What hadn't puffed up onto his gloves had settled down. He stood from his crouch somewhat unbalanced after dousing the dust in some water from his canteen. After replacing it in his satchel, he eyed the major, who had plastered himself up against the far wall. The pistol was still raised in one hand, the rope clutched in another. Hawkeye's eyes were still shut tight, but he seemed less jittery. Indy turned back to the temple sentry and the archway behind it. Experience had taught him that no answer came quickly. The mechanics of the temple were old and hadn't seen the sight of day in thousands of years. Indy found himself impatient in spite of that. Facing a bullet had that affect on him. The seconds flew by. Indy knew he and Pierce wouldn't live to see seconds become minutes. The click of hammer gave credence to Jones' prediction.

"Your ingenuity is admirable," the major admitted. "But, loss is an inventible outcome of war. Goo—"

The major's uninspired death speech, a treat Indy had been subject to many a time, was suddenly interrupted by a sudden earthquake jolt that sent all three men off of their feet. Indy rolled onto his stomach in time to avoid a large rock joggled loose from the ceiling. It had friends. The once even ground became a minefield of boulders and shockwaves.

_Crreeeeeeeeaaakkkkkkkkkkggrrrrrrrrrrrr_

The door was opening.

_Hiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss_

The airtight compartment behind the slabs pushed through to relieve the pressure, making a sound like steak sizzling.

Once the rumble subsided, Indy found Hawkeye a few feet from where he'd been standing. He helped him up, the doctor's eyes bulging with fear.

"Hawkeye, I need you to come back to the world."

"Why, you're doing just find with my shaky dog understudy. Granted, he has a tendency to wet the stage down, but it comes in handy if there's a fire. Theaters are deathtraps don't ya know."

"Gentlemen,"—it was the major—"very impressive, your gambit for survival. And effective. You've bought time. If the temple does not kill you, you'll have earned your freedom from me." Though besmirched by soot, he was still erect and steadfast. He lowered the gun long enough to dig Indy's whip and gun out of the duffel bag, half buried by fresh pebble. The whip was sent through the air into Jones' waiting hands. He pocked the gun.

"What about my gun?" As if Indy really thought he would get it back.

"You'll manage without it." The major's humor was not shared. "Grab up your friend and get moving. I'll wait here."

"Of course." Indy slapped Hawkeye on the back, quarried the flash light out of the rubble, and started inside, briefly acknowledging the temple guard before entering the open gateway.

"Get moving!"

Indy turned back to see Hawkeye staring at him, frozen with terror. "Come on, Pierce!"

"I can't…I can't."

"Get it together, man!" Jones was done babying him. "It's either this" –he gestured toward the unknown that lay ahead—"or a bullet."

Hawkeye inched forward. When he was within reach, Indy snagged him by the sleeve and led him down. At first, the two had to hunch along, minding a low overhead, but as they moved farther and farther away, the tunnel opened up, even wider than the antechamber they'd started in. The tunnel transformed into a hallway, step by step. It helped Hawkeye's disposition, whose stride quickened and normalized with each footfall. He was not in a joking mood; his thoughts did the talking for him. They still envisioned a great cave in, trapping him inside for some _other _archeologist to find him, thousands of years later, the Korean War _months_ behind a recuperating world. At least he was moving. His eyes stayed glued to the brim of Indy's hat, the only clear image atop a blurry illumination of his jacket.

"Hey Indy," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Talk to me."

"Huh?"

"About anything…I gotta take my mind off the walls closing in."

"Well…" Indy, the normally candid professor, was at a loss for words. "Well…the major told me they found this place after a mortar shell blasted a weak spot on the ground that opened the hole into that antechamber."

"Gah! Not helping."

"Yikes, sorry."

"It's okay…uh…uh…" _Uh_ was the most uncommon of phrases in Hawkeye's vocabulary. "What's he after…you said a grapevine."

"Yeah…the grapevine Jiso ate from. He told me that an old man from the village we got snagged in said that this place is where it was enshrined to prevent another great famine. That it had great powers or something like that. He wants to use it for the war effort."

"Do you believe that?"

"That's the legend."

"Yeah, but do you—"

"I don't know…I've seen a lot of strange stuff." As if on cue the flashlight caught sight of drawings inscribed on the walls around them. The change in scenery was the surprise, rather than what they depicted. Indy explained the story the pictures told as the two moved along, one by one, like a panel in a comic strip. It was the Incident of the Five Tastes, the synopsis of which Indy had explained before in trying to solve the temple guard's riddle. However the last 'panel' jumped out at him. He stopped in front of it. It showed a being with hands outstretched in long robes with an elongated head, above it was a skull with the same deformity. It was surrounded by light, as if blotting out the sun. It seemed…out of place. He understood the symbolism, but it didn't gel with the rest of the story. The artist had tried to convey that the skull…sparkled...gave off light…or had some sort of reflective quality. Also, little waves seemed to pulse from it. Mitchell Hedges' famous crystal skull came to mind and the legend surrounding it; the belief that others existed and their discovery would bring a great revelation. Hard for Indy to swallow, but never the less, its appearance in the image stirred feelings in him and memories of his youth as well. Not only had he and an old friend been obsessed with the Hedges skull in college, Indy had almost died of Typhus looking for one in South America as part of some wild goose chase that involved the Spanish tales of El Dorado. "Oxley, if you could see this."

"Huh?"

"Never mind—look, the passage gets wider up ahead."

Stepping into the shrine, Indy instinctively ran the flashlight's beam along the ground. Any traps left behind were likely to be triggered from the ground. "Step where I step, Hawkeye. Don't touch anything." He tilted the light up onto the sparkling glimmer of their prize. The grapevine had been preserved inside a golden cylinder studded with jewels. Looked like a straight shot right up to it, but the easier it appeared, the more perilous the task. "Looks easy, doesn't it? Don't be fooled."

"Oh yeah. This has all been real easy. First I get shot at, and play musical jeeps, then I get kidnapped and find out one of my best friends could be dead, then I get put in a hole. This has been a real piece of cake."

"We jumped into a motorcycle," Indy corrected.

"Makes all the difference in the world," Hawkeye sarcastically confessed.

"I'm going over there."

"Right behind you."

"No, you stay—"

"You're not leaving me back here, fella."

"Step where I step."

"All right, but I'm used to leading the dance."

Getting up there was the easy part, even with Hawkeye shadowing him. There were no suspicious grooves or indentions that aroused any danger of tripping something.

The vine was beautiful in a simplistic sort of way. Inside the gold shell, there was another clear compartment, glass maybe, that held the vine, submerged in an emerald liquid. Under the flashlight's exanimation, Indy could make out the tiny grapes still attached to the plant. The cylinder sat perched on a raised circular platform on a stone shelf. It instantly had Indy worried. "Get ready to run."

"What for?" The voice came right in his ear.

"Well, if I snatch it up, the platform will sink and it'll trigger a trap. I need something of equal weight. Gold can get pretty heavy, do you—"

"Sorry, the milk was all I could contribute."

"Then get ready to run."

"Let's just think this—" Hawkeye didn't have time to finish his sentence. Indy snatched up the tube and started running back the other way. He turned in time to feel the floor start to drop out from under him. He ran like his ass was on fire. He had gotten a few feet when the entryway where Indy had darted started to get lower…and lower. His fingers found ledge and his stomach cold stone. What was the old saying? _Never look down?_Hawkeye did and found himself staring at the same cold nothingness that he had seen before. The temple was like one big, black, cloud of fear and hot sweat.

**Next Chapter: ???**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten: Waving the Flagg**

Try as he might, Hawkeye couldn't even pretend he had any upper body strength. Not even a bike pump sticking out of his biceps might have helped his gawky disposition. "Lend a hand," he uttered meekly as he began to slide down the fall. "I don't have any spinach cans on me." Indy couldn't help but crack a smirk. Even in a moment like that, Hawkeye's humor was present, as long as it was himself in peril and not someone else. It had a certain suicidal underbelly, but what humor didn't in Korea. Dark humor was the opiate of the man with nothing to live for. Indy crouched at the ledge, again against the behest of his knees, and took Pierce's hand. He began to pull him up when the chillingly recognizable sensation of a gun barrel lit his awareness. He felt it pressed against the base of his skull, just a few bumps away from the brim of his hat. Hawkeye's eyes were staring right through him to the other side…to their guest. _Where are you now, Mac?_

"Decided to join the fun after all, Major?" Indy didn't have to look.

"Where is it?"

"I put it in my satchel."

"Take off the bag and hand it to me."

"Okay."

"Wait…let your friend drop."

Horror filled Hawkeye's eyes, but before he could protest, Indy answered—to him, rather than the gunman. "No."

The hammer clicked.

"You shoot me the way I'm stooped and I'll fall with him, and you wont ever see your prize. I can take off the satchel with one hand. That's the way it's gonna be." He felt the major get closer until he pressed against him, chest to back, still keeping the gun against his head.

"Do it slowly, Doctor Jones." He warned.

Hawkeye watching, thin beads of sweat forming on his brow, Indy carefully pulled the leather strap over his head and held the satchel out to the side. As the major's gloved finger came into his peripheral vision, he let it drop into the pit. The major shouted a vulgar obscenity in another language. Indy, a master linguist, understood. The gun pulled away from Indy's head as its' owner went after the falling trophy. Indy used the same free hand to give him a little push. The major's screams echoed only for a few seconds, blurred in Hawkeye's mind by the sudden jolt of his stomach when Indy began to pull him up. As soon as ground was under his feet, Hawkeye pulled away and tried to walk, tripping over the satchel's strap, which had luckily looped around his ankle.

"Hah!" Jones exclaimed, snatching it up.

"You—killed him!" Hawkeye struggled to his feet to stare Indy down, antagonized by his display.

"What was I supposed to do? The man had a gun…do you think he was going to let us go after I gave this up."—Indy shook the satchel in front of his comrade.

Hawkeye was still mad, but had no answer. Truthfully, there had been no other way. He was still upset, but he was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Indy tried to reason further, understanding Hawkeye's disruption, a doctor who had been surrounded by death for more than two years. "He didn't have to go for it. If greed hadn't had that kind of power over him—he wouldn't be dead."

"Was it the same kind of greed that made you drop it…knowing what would happen?" Hawkeye was calmer now, but still taken aback by Indy's actions, a man he now considered a friend.

It was Indy who now had no answer.

* * *

"Say," Hawkeye called to Indy as they gingerly made their way back to the antechamber. "I know what you can do with that thing."

"Put it in a museum?"

"No—"

"Pity, cause that's where it's going."

"Come on!" Hawkeye whined. "You and I both know that it could do a hell of a lot more for the locals than you. Besides, if you don't you'll be nothing better than some grave robber." It was very inopportune to bring it up at that point, having known from the beginning the good doctor's intentions, however maybe it was exactly the right time to appeal to his humanity…he was in a good mood after all…after nearly dieing to get the grapevine in the first place.

Indy stopped and turned to him. "It belongs in a museum. All they'll do is sell it on the black market and it'll disappear forever. Do you have any idea what I have here? A key to the past."

"Yeah, and the money for it could uplift a village from poverty a thousand times over."

"Spare me, Doctor Pierce." Indy's tone was strictly incensed with Pierce for the first time. It softened, however, almost immediately. "I need it, too. I'm not a young man anymore."

"Who is? I've wasted some good years here…some bad ones, too."

"I need something to show for my university…that I can still cut it…so people won't…forget me."

A lump formed in Hawkeye's throat. _Radar, I never thought I'd say this…if I could have your words_. "They won't, especially the people you help get away from this war with the money that thing can pull in."

Indy didn't have to stay there in the mud and blood. He got a taste of the war, but his serious days in the O.S.S./C.I.A. were gone. He could go home whenever he wanted like some pillager…a grave robber as Hawkeye put it. It was the right thing to do…and it wasn't the first time he'd done it.

Jones shrunk for a moment. And after a long breath he said with a crooked, but wounded grin, "All right. Don't count your chickens yet, Hawk. We still gotta bust your C.O. and a truckload of civilians loose first."

Hawkeye's beaming smile faded upon the reminder of Potter and the task that still lay ahead. "Oh…yeah."

The climb up was…interesting. Hawkeye went first; Indy second to make sure Pierce didn't collapse back down and end up stranded. He slipped once or twice, his footing wobbly and potholed, but once he finally reached the edge of the gap's mouth, he found an outstretched ready to help him the rest of the way…a hand he never would have guessed in a thousand years would help him out of anywhere. _Maybe out of my skin._

"Looks like I've finally caught you _red_-handed, _comrade_," Colonel Flagg said, pulling Hawkeye out of the whole. Surrounding him were a dozen or so soldiers in the vomit green uniforms that Pierce was so accustomed to. Flagg put his hands on his hips and callously observed him with his squinty eyes and intense stance. He wore no coat and was dressed no different than Hawkeye had ever seen him before, olive drab shirt, pants, boots and cap, his bird shinning whiter than a picket fence.

"It's freezing out here! How can you stand there like a snowman on a sun-drenched beach?"

Colonel Flagg humored the questioned with what Hawkeye assumed from experience could only be a true answer. "During my specialist training I had to stand in a meat locker for seventy-two hours."

Hawkeye shook his head. "Why did I think I'd seen the last of you?" He had been sure that when Flagg busted in on a poker game a few months ago thinking it was a communist spy ring (having been tricked by Charles) and tried to arrest the mayor of Uijeongbu and his brother, the chief of police, that the idiotic, spy hunting C.I.A. had been through. Nonesuch the luck.

"Don't be so sure you haven't, Pierce. I intend to put to in a cell so long you'll beg for a firing squad."

Flagg's low, drawn out, voice was menacing, but always idle. Hawkeye wasn't shaken in the least. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Flagg, but I'm innocent."

"You call aiding and abetting a communist officer in a kidnapping of a Colonel in—"

"That colonel happens to be my C.O., genius and I came out here to get him back."

"We've already seen to that. Your commie friends were scared away by our patrol."

"He was with me," Indy appeared beside him and put a hand on Hawkeye's back.

"Jones?" Flagg eyed Indy carefully.

"_You _know him too?!" Hawkeye cried out.

"Sure…Sam and I go way back."

Hawkeye was no more good. All he could do was groan.

"I can vouch for us, Sam. I was cleared to be in Korea under the expressed permission of the National Museum in Washington, DC and the _company_. Can we see the Potter and the civilians?"

"Sure."

"Sure? You get _sures_ out of him? How? How, I ask?!" Hawkeye's outrage was half mock. He was happy he wasn't going to end up Flagg's personal punching bag.

"Some guys got it, Hawk. Some guys don't."

**Next Chapter: Epilogue**.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven: Epilogue.**

The first thing Hawkeye did upon arriving back at his hell away from home was throw a party. Discourse and disillusion followed any trying crisis. This little romp was no different. The heat of danger had raised boils on his back and added a few more gray hairs to his salt and pepper mess. So, of course, he had to make his insides match his out. Hawkeye was nothing if not consistent. The booze went fast in honor of Jones, Mac, and the returning Colonel. Potter stayed only for a few rounds, Margaret finally harping him away from the festivity and into bed.

The two newcomers were both praised and chastised for the events that had capsized the little camp, all in one breath. Radar talked Indy's ear off. He was never prouder of his hero. He only wished he had been there, which he reminded Indy again and again, until he couldn't speak any more. A similar fate befell everyone close to him as the night waned on. The buzz died and what crowd hadn't passed out on the floor dissipated.

Hawkeye and Indy sat together at the bar. Hawkeye kept sipping a beer that had emptied an hour ago. Jones cradled his, the rust colored contents having warmed in his hand. Jones took a long look at the room behind them. It looked like a battlefield. People sprawled everywhere, sleeping where they fell, unable to carry on. Only two remained standing, slumped up against the jukebox; Mac and Winchester. They were shoulder to shoulder, swaying back and forth, still muttering songs in sync with a record that had flat lined before they had.

"You two hold these social gatherings often?" Jones regarded Hawkeye's partner in crime, B.J. Honeydoo, passed out on a stool nearby, snoring loudly.

"Oh yeah," Hawkeye assured. "But, only when the situation calls for it. Everyday."

"That bad," Indy said as a matter of fact. In just a little time he had gotten so much of Korea and become a part of it through Hawkeye's distain of it, a wandering clown trapped in a wrong time.

"In between the booze, ooze, bruise, abuse, and bad news, we find time to sing the blues," Hawk recited. "By B. F. Pierce; killed in action."

"War has many casualties." The empty place in Indy's satchel still burned a blues of its own. Knowledge that what he'd done was right in giving his prize to the freed villagers wouldn't keep warm. Having Hawkeye's respect, however, he was finding oddly comforting. He was a cynical, rude, obnoxious man who didn't look for anyone's approval. In doing so, he unknowingly commanded others to seek it from him. Gaining his friendship was a unique experience, and maybe that was the prize Jones would take from Korea. "None so dire as the mask of virtue."

"Yeah. Without it, we couldn't find reasons to go to one."

"To virtue"—Indy raised his glass.

"May she get skivvies and stay home next time!"

Their toast was interrupted by Radar crawling to his feet, cast from the human debris.

"Hey, kid." Indiana welcomed the boy with jaunty delight. "That grape knee-high coming back to visit ya."

He didn't answer. In his eyes, Hawkeye saw that familiarly distant gawk, as if miles away. "Oh no," was all Hawk could muster.

"Choppers…coming in fast. Choppers! Choppers! Everybody get up quick!" One by one, he tried to rouse the drunks up, wounded by their inebriation.

Hawkeye's head sank.

Indy put his hand on his shoulder. "Can I help?"

"Great…we need another doctor…"

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah…yeah…"

He rode with Hawkeye to the landing pad, blinded by snowfall. The surgery was as long as the blood deep. A day later, Indy was gone. His goodbye was short. The high of his visit lasted through two more dances with wounded, and then his stopover disintegrated into a fond but faded memory. Monotony and its stingy hold returned, with it, the urge to split your head with that axe.

The war marched on.

The End.


End file.
